David Campbell

David Campbell was one of Saffron Walden’s most famous sons.

He was a press photographer for the Saffron Walden Weekly News, capturing almost every major event in the town for the paper, which was the sister publication to the Cambridge Evening News.

He became interested in photography as a child and abandoned his work as an office boy at a grocery store to concentrate on photography during the Second World War.

He sold his pictures to the Weekly News and became so successful at newspaper work that he decided to turn professional as the war ended.

During his career, he photographed Lord Butler, Jack Train, Lord Montgomery and Ralph Richardson.

His collection of pictures provides an insight into the way his town has changed over the years, and includes major events such as the Boxing Day fire at the Rose and Crown Hotel in 1969, which resulted in several fatalities. The local library holds around 5,000 of his prints.

His photos appear in several books about the town, and the first book about his work was called Saffron Walden through David Campbell’s Camera.

David Campbell’s collection was taken between the 1940s and 1970s.